


Waiting Game

by AugustStories



Series: Season 15 Oneshots [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awesome Eileen Leahy, BAMF Eileen Leahy, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester Fluff, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Hell, Hurt Sam Winchester, The Cage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 08:46:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: She's been stuck in Hell for an eternity.But she never gave up, she never gave in. The demons, the dark spirits, they hissed 'Winchester' at her and left her alone. Left her alone to plot. She would get out of here, she would not fall to Hell's destruction.When Hell gets torn open, she has to act fast.The souls soar for Earth, she dives deeper into the pit.





	Waiting Game

**Author's Note:**

> Don't ask me where this has been coming from. Last night's episode had me very emotional and today was a very emotional day and I just needed to write and write and write to cope with it and get my head clear again.
> 
> Working on more episode codas for this episode as well still, with the Halloween break coming, I got some room to really pile them on.
> 
> As for this in a note: As much as I am hoping it won't be true, I am quite grim over it since we learned where Kevin was brought to. Taking into account how Eileen died... yeah, don't think it's looking so good there.

When the locks cracked, the doors jumped open and the walls teared apart, everything filed out of Hell in a massive stampede, ghosts, spirits, souls, demons. Everything took the free path to Earth, some to cause suffering, some to seek freedom, some to just get out of Hell.

She staid.

She wasn't the only one but the ones remaining were either demons looting formerly locked corners for something or were souls too broken to even become a haunted spirit. She herself had no current desire to go topside, not yet, not while she was nothing but a soul herself. Going topside only risked her losing control and becoming something that the people she wanted to return to would have to kill.

She knew how it went, she had been doing it herself for all her life.

No, she had a mission and only some hours after whatever powerful wave had been unleashed upon Hell opened the doors, she knew how to get it.

She was minding her own business and keeping out of the way of whoever demon was currently in the mood for torturing some souls, she had been quite good at avoiding most of it from right the beginning, trained instincts and all. Added to it that everyone seemed to know who she was and whom she had spent some time with and no one dared to lay a finger on her anymore.

'Winchester' they hissed at her, though she was none and had her own name, her own identity, but it kept her from being broken like so many others, so she didn't argue anything. She watched and learned, like she always did, like she had always done, born to be a perfect observer. She had quickly found out who was just lacky and who actually had leverage to their words, she found the button pushers, the torturers, she found the accountants and the soldiers.

And she found the elite demon squad whose only role it was to guard access to the lowest pit.

Access to the Cage.

And that was where she needed to get to now.

Elite demons or not they were among the first who scrambled out of Hell in the flow of souls, their words of warning ringing from the walls.

'The Cage is open!'

Panic, pandemonium, pure frantic fear had caused the mass exit to grow in pace still, everyone expecting a sudden burst of life and demons to drop dead by angelic Grace via an Archangel ascending. But nothing happened. She crept closer to the Cage in the days that passed in Hell, bit by bit, careful to not be seen, even though there was barely anyone left anymore.

Her plan couldn't fail now.

Some demons still watched the Cage from a distance now, and all of them were in agreement, 'he's just sitting there.' It didn't bring her hopes up to monumental levels but it also didn't destroy them, there was power still in the Cage, she could feel it, the demons could feel it, otherwise they would get closer, would taunt the creature of Heaven no longer imprisoned.

A month passed in Hell until she finally reached a ledge where she could see the Cage herself, by then she was alone, no one was around anymore this deep in the pit. She knelt down and watched the Archangel sitting maybe three or four steps away from the door that still hung on its last hinge, swinging in whatever remaining spells still tainted this place.

She saw the soul that though completely able to never soared far from the unmoving body of what had once been Adam Milligan's body. She had seen a picture of him, Sam had shown it to her once, that night where he had told her about his time in the Cage because he hadn't been sleeping well in days and she had wanted to know how she could help. Like a baby bird Adam's soul now soared towards the open doorway again and again before returning to settle himself against the chest of a frozen seeming Michael.

She watched them for three more days.

She shouldn't have.

Should have only taken hours.

Because suddenly something happened and something was pulling souls back into Hell and towards something and she felt the tug, saw how Adam burrowed himself under one of Michael's hands. And she saw most of all how an Archangel's eyes suddenly flared up blue and white for a short moment.

He was there.

He was still there, he would only need some coaxing and she had to act fast now.

Someone was closing the doors.

She swung herself down from the ledge and went incorporal until she reached the Cage, she passed by the flickers of magic and then gave herself her spirital body back just because she liked it better like this, liked to be more ghost than soul. Adam's soul shied away from her when she made to touch him, just to assure him that she was no threat, that she was here to help, no matter her own selfish desires.

Before she could even get close though, a hand snapped out and caught her wrist in a powerful unbending grip.

"Do not."

Pale green eyes flared up white-blue with Grace and she shrank back into herself for a good short moment.

"Why aren't you leaving? Why are you still here?" She launched herself right past the fear curling somewhere inside of her, "the Cage is broken, the doors of Hell are closing again, time is running out. You can get out of here still."

"Time is not running out for me," Michael's cold words rang out in her very being, "I can enter and leave Hell whenever I so please without these constraints on me now."

"So why aren't you?" She snapped at him, fire roaring up inside of her, contrary to him she was running out of time and she was not going to lose this one chance of getting back her life. Of getting back her life that was wrongly taken from her. One chance of getting back to Sam. Angry and furious now she straightened up again and towered over the being who could destroy even her soul existence into nothingness with just a lazy twitch of his finger. She could taste the power in him, whatever Sam had heard from Lucifer years ago had been bullshit.

Michael had given up on something but it wasn't his sanity.

It wasn't his Grace or his will to keep existing.

"Why aren't you getting out there!" She yelled down at him, behind Michael Adam had formed into his ghostly self and was watching her out of frightened eyes, pearing over a shoulder of a body that looked like he did. Only Michael's eyes were numb and cold. "Why are you sitting down here like a prisoner? You're free!"

"To do what?" He surprised her with that simple question and her first instinct was to say 'for revenge' but she didn't because she had fought that thought down for herself for so long, souls and spirits longing for revenge got lost in it. And she couldn't encourage _him_ to dream of revenge because the very people that would hit were the ones she wanted to return to. Her lost to revenge meant a haunted spirit who would kill.

Him lost to revenge meant the end of the world.

And she was quite sure that whatever was closing down Hell right now and trapping the souls and spirits and demons back inside had just about prevented that already.

"To find out who has done this? Aren't you the least bit curious over that? To know what had happened to Heaven and Earth so this could in turn happen to Hell?" She was seething, the power he had, the power to help, to save, to be free and he was just sitting here. Sam had told her only shortly before she had gone into hiding and cut contact with him to protect him that Heaven's numbers were dwindling, that the angels might struggle to keep it going for long still.

And he had the audacity...

An Archangel who could save them... just sitting here!

"I know who did this. It was my Father. I do not know why but I could feel his power sweeping over Hell," Michael told her and even Adam looked surprised behind him, blinking at the Archangel's profile. "So I ask you again, why should I leave?"

"Because you don't belong here?" She tried it with logic because he was still an angel and they didn't always operate on emotions as she had learned, Castiel had been an exception, Sam had told her that often enough. "Hell is no place for an Archangel, for Heaven's Prince."

Michael gave a short humorless laugh, and then quickly reached out when whatever had been tugging souls in suddenly disappeared and Adam and her dropped to the ground. Michael moved hands over them and suddenly Eileen understood why Adam hadn't left him, why he had been unwilling to leave. Michael was light, he was so much light in a bottomless pit of darkness and despair.

"I had a task once, a duty to Heaven. I was to lead Heaven's side in the Apocalypse, I was forseen to fight my brother. My task was to kill him to bring paradise on Earth. And I failed." Michael told it all without really showing any kind of emotions in his voice, everything came out numb and without any care. His eyes spoke a different language though now and Eileen jumped for that, she wouldn't give up, she would get out of here.

"So find a new task, give yourself a new destiny," she snapped at him and knelt in front of him again, giving Adam a smile when he settled down next to her now. "You obviously still care a little on what happens, otherwise you wouldn't have protected Adam from Lucifer. I know Sam Winchester, I have heard from him what he went through at your brother's hands and Grace and Adam does not look like he suffered even a percentage of that."

"I did not let my brother put a hand on him. I am not letting anyone put a hand on him," Michael declared to her and Eileen dug deeper.

"Great, so take him, and get out of here. Bring him back to Earth, or Heaven, bring him to where he can be safer than he is here. No one can hurt him with demonic touches there, Hell is closing," she argued and she needed to hurry the fuck up. "I get that the grand task had been failed. You're not the first one whose life was formed on thing and thing alone, and maybe your existence was quite a bit longer but I can't believe that an Archangel just sits down and mopes until the end of time while humanity picks themselves up again and moves on. So you failed in killing your brother, I would say I'm sorry but I'm kinda on the Winchester side of things there and I'm glad the Apocalypse got avoided. Get the fuck over yourself, Michael."

She wasn't eactly sure if she hadn't just crossed the line too much by cussing at the oldest Archangel after God had apparently already been pissed off.

And why couldn't she shake the sudden feeling that Sam and Dean were involved in all of this?

Before she could panic though and wind back down, it was Adam who was speaking up.

"We can leave, Michael. We can leave this place and you won't have to hurt anymore to protect me. You can see Heaven again and I can go back to my brothers. I can have a life again. Or see my Mum again if you take me to Heaven," Adam told him gently and he was so young still, she had never really thought about it.

"I would want you to have a life again, Adam, for everything Heaven made you suffer for, you deserve a second chance at life," Michael was different with him, softer, protective, his voice carried fondness.

"So give it to him," Eileen got in between it again, "Give him that second chance and then clean up Heaven because frankly the parts I got to hear about were a mess. And your father wasn't interested in returning to it. They need you. Let that be your purpose, let them be your purpose. Without Heaven humanity is at risk as well, and you angels are supposed to watch over us! You want a purpose, as task? Be a fucking Archangel, Michael! There is enough evil still left in this world that Heaven's armies can be led against!"

And then with a jolt and a distant boom Hell was shut.

She hadn't been quick enough.

She deflated, slumped down, all that work for nothing.

"Why did you come down here, Eileen Leahy? Why did you come down here when everyone else was running for the gates?" Michael asked her after a moment had passed and she watched him, tired now, so tired and weary.

"I do not want to return to Earth as a ghost. I did not deserve my death, I did not deserve to end up here. This isn't my place, I know it," she argued weakly and then gasped when a hand cupped her ghostly face and Grace filled her soul to the brink. Michael flashed through her memories, too quickly for her to grasp anything.

"I see," he said as the only thing at first when he pulled back again, "no, your place is not here. So I ask you again, why did you come here? To me."

"Castiel raised Dean from Hell. He raised Sam from it as well. I want a second chance, Michael," she spoke it more pleading like she had initially planned, it had supposed to have been a demand because she knew she deserved this. "I want my life back."

He cocked his head to the side, watched her, and she wasn't kidding herself by seeing life return to his eyes.

Had she done it?

Had she given him what he needed?

Had that really been all? Just reminding him that he could still have a purpose? Be a little angry with him?

When he got to his feet, slowly and indeed purposefully, too, rolling his shoulders, she could only watch on pure awe how the wings appeared in shimmering white light behind him. Michael reached down both hands and grabbed their hands, pulling Adam and her to their ghostly feet.

"For giving me my strength back, Eileen Leahy, and for reminding me I can still have a purpose, I will raise you from Hell."

The announcement hadn't even time to settle within her before she was soaring.

Not towards darkness but towards light.

\--

She gasped for air what felt like no time at all later, lying on a meadow, sun on her skin, wind against her hair, a blue sky above her, trees moving, butterflies and bees flying around.

Two hands gently pulled her upright to sit in the grass and it was disorientating to feel a body again, to feel the heaviness of limbs, the softness and roughness of clothes. Across from her Adam was running his fingers through grass and flowers, still sitting down himself. She moved her head until she met warm blue eyes now, and even though he looked so very different, she still knew it was Michael.

"I reformed your body," he said and she couldn't hear him now, she was in a body again, not just a soul anymore, human laws applied to everything again now. "I reformed your ears..."

"The way they were," she interrupted him, grateful for it, she was who she was, she had always been proud of that, taken strength from what others would have seen as weakness. "I wouldn't have wanted any other way. This is who I am."

"I don't know where the Winchesters are," Michael continued and helped Adam and her up onto their feet, making sure they were standing steadily first before letting go. "I can sense Castiel, he might be with them or at least know where they are." He held out his hands again, and once more they reached for them. "I would close my eyes for this, it's different in a body."

When she felt ground under her feet again she opened her eyes once more, and it was to the familia sight of the bunker, the war room in particular and especially Dean Winchester pulling a gun at one of the tables and Castiel whirling around on the staircase to her right. Michael waved his hands the gun in Dean's hand went flying, Eileen took that opening and started running, she couldn't see Sam in the room, she would find him.

Leaving the explaining to Michael and Adam she dodged the hand that Dean lunged for her with and instead began a mad dash through the corridors. The library was empty, so was the kitchen. His room then.

She nearly kicked the door open when the old handle wouldn't budge on the first try but then she could push the door open without destroying it and on the bed Sam lurched upride. Tears were running down his eyes, his eyes redrimmed and hollow and she knew immediately that something terrible had happened here but there he was.

There he was right in front of her, staring at her, his eyes so disbelieving.

She stepped forward and he twitched back, too broken by whatever had occured to reach for weapons.

"It's me," she said because her hands were shaking too much now to sign, Sam stuttered out her name, "yes, it's me." She repeated and reached the edge of the bed, kneeling down on it to get close enough to touch him. "It's really me."

"Eileen."

She framed his face in her hands, felt the tears against her skin and beneath the guilt and the pain and the horror in his eyes a spark of hope got born. One of his hands came up and touched her hair, careful and hesitant like she might disappear at any second again, and then she got pulled into his arms. Wrenched into a hug and she let herself melt against him, held him when he broke down now, sobs racking through his body and shaking him so badly, tears were running down her neck where he had pressed his face.

She would learn later what had happened, if the boys had really been involved in this mess. And if they had, they would find a way to fix it together.

For now, she would take care of Sam.

For now, she would just be with him.

A second chance at life, and she would start by holding Sam.


End file.
